A banana split and a trouser split – not a good recipe on a bike

The life of a broke man is not one to be envied. It is full of trials and tribulations, which can only be understood by readers of the book of Job in the Bible. When you are broke, nothing ever works, the simplest plans never succeed, the easiest tasks turn out to be a real mess and you are generally unlucky with everything.

I had the full package with complementary add-ons, of broke man’s luck just after I left university and was trying to forge a career. For fear of invoking painful memories and hence shedding a bucketful of tears that could very well ruin my laptop’s keyboard, I will hold back from telling you about the very worst of my luck and give you a mere incident which did not even register on my Richter scale of bad luck.

So, several months after leaving university, I received an invitation to attend a job interview after a superb through pass that had been played by a sympathetic old man that knew of my abilities and had seen enough of my poverty. It was a promising job in that I was the only candidate invited for the interview and the pay promised was out of this world. All I had to do was show up and let the interviewer see that I had only one head and that I could hold a conversation in English for up to 2 minutes.

I summoned my girlfriend for a celebratory lunch of two packets of chips, vinegar and salt at McFries, all for 100 shillings. The poor girl was genuinely happy for me. She had been through a lot with my bad luck and yet she saw something in me which even I did not see.

Her words of encouragement and affection moved me and in a moment of thoughtlessness, I promised that I would take her to a Java restaurant immediately after my interview and treat her to something called a banana split, which I had been told by a friend was something quite magnificent.

From my friend’s explanation, three hundred and twenty shillings would do the trick in Java, assuming she didn’t fall to the temptation of anything else in the menu. I calculated that I needed about one month to save the money for two banana splits and so I set a date with her in 45 days (you can never be too sure).

The double dose of good news staggered her but she quickly recovered her composure and had the presence of mind to reward my generous intent with a nice warm hug and a kiss on the cheek.

The day of the interview came and I put on my best clothes which comprised of a shirt, a pair of trousers and shoes, all of which had been bought by my girlfriend over the years as gifts. My bike, a 125cc symbol of humility and poverty (which wasn’t bought by my girlfriend), was washed and stood outside waiting to take me to the interview. I said a small prayer and got onto the bike confident that at the end of the ride I would be a changed man with better fortunes.

All through the ride, I felt that the trousers, which I didn’t wear often because they were above my ‘sunday best’ in the hierarchy of preciousness, were uncomfortable and a little too tight around the thighs and crotch. I told myself it was the modern way of dressing to wear clothes which were a little tight around the crotch, all the successful people seemed to do it and I was about to become one.

I arrived at the venue 10 minutes early and thought this to be a good thing. As I alighted from the bike, I heard a loud sound resembling that of a large bed sheet being torn. I looked behind me to check if I could see the strange person tearing bed sheets in an office parking lot but there was no one. Strange.

I removed by bike jacket and proceeded to tuck in my shirt properly and neaten myself when I felt a small tear on my trousers just below the belt at the back. I felt the tear some more and was surprised to discover that it extended a little further down. I looked down in bewilderment and saw that the tear was a lot worse than I had imagined!

It started from the belt area around my bottom and followed the stitching all the way beyond the zip and button at the front all the way to the belt buckle. It was the worst trouser split I had ever seen, a terrible, vengeful trouser split that didn’t spare me even a little dignity.

I stood there for a while, confused and feeling a light wind blowing through my loins. I considered many things, like tying a jacket around my waist and walking into the interview and in the end decided that I would go to a supermarket to buy a new pair trousers with the only money I had and be late for the interview. I thought it to be the best solution.

At the supermarket door the watchman insisted that I put in storage the bag which I held in front of me. He also wanted me to remove the jacket I’d tied around my waist and to spread my arms and legs wide so that he would scan me properly, but I resisted.

Seeing that he wasn’t going to let me in, I let down the bag and jacket and the two watchmen at the entrance saw for themselves the lay of the land under my trousers. They looked at me in embarrassment and waved me inside the supermarket, it was all that could be said in a civilized world.

I sneaked in, picked a new pair of trousers and wore it in the changing rooms. I plucked out the price tag and took it to the cashier. The cashier refused to accept my explanation that the trouser I was wearing was indeed the one I had just bought and so we had to call the watchman at the door to give an eyewitness account of the state of my original pair of trousers. This was not enough, someone was sent to fetch that original pair, which I’d discarded in the changing rooms, as an exhibit and the cashier, together with the branch manager, grudgingly accepted my explanation.

I made it back to the interview venue half an hour later and was informed that they’d waited for me and disbanded so there would be no interview for me and the job offer withdrawn.

I rode back to the house depressed. I had lost an opportunity to a split trouser and to compound the problem I was not going to buy my girlfriend a banana split because I had spent my entire GDP buying a new pair of trousers.

About The Author

The Author, here writing in third person, finds it difficult to describe himself. He could have let someone else eulogize him, but then little good can be said of him even if one resorts to the usual hackneyed descriptions of lowly authors. A charitable friend once described the beauty of this author as elusive - it is there but it is easy to miss it.

I have laughed out loud, laughed quietly to myself, held back tears of laughter, held back tears of sympathy…
This is BEAUTIFUL!
Please allow me to read this to my Writers Club – we meet on Thursdays, and I already have a gleam in my eye as I anticipate reading this.